Drills, Goats, and Radical Love.

You know you're an urban farmer when...
1. You grow your own food.
2. You share what you grow.
3. You've named your farm.

This definition was provided by Greg Peterson of The Urban Farm at the recent Jump Start Your Garden class, and I was finally ahead of the game.  Though I've yet to grow any food big enough to fill an actual salad bowl, my sign was in the ground weeks ago.  Yesss...

So Kevin recently went to Germany.  This left me ample time to buy wood at Home Depot and play with his power tools.  That experience went something like this:

Okay, found a drill. But what the heck is a bit, and where would I find one?  

      (About an hour later...) Googling "how to insert a bit"...

There are people in the world who operate on a "What is my time worth?" daily philosophy.  I am not one of those people.  Many, many hours later, I was quite proud to have accomplished the jerry-rigging (after google-based Drilling 101) of the following two raised beds:
        

                PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT: Girls should take shop in school!!!

In other news, did you know that you can get a free compost bin from the city?  It needs about three parts "brown" (carbon material like leaves) to one part "green" (the nitrogen supplies, like kitchen scraps and manure).  Here is our new compost bin:

I may not have my own goats, but that hasn't stopped us from having goat manure adventures!  (Jealous yet?  No, you say?  Permaculture schmernaculture!)  Anyway, it is easy, fun, and free!  Madison played on the property's trampoline and with the many adorable goats while I shoveled goat poo into bags.  You do what you can in the desert to try and get healthy soil...

Permaculture is REALLY neat.  Imagine your property as a self-sustaining space (chickens, veggies, herbs, water harvesting, composting, and how about a solar-powered pizza oven?).  Still, my personal dream is to have more dominion over what we're putting into our bodies, to cultivate heirloom versions of God's designs for our food, and to see a long-term, very healthy version of:

You got it.  The loves of my life.

For so much, I am thankful!!  Happy Thanksgiving to all of you!